Five new reasons to laugh at Donald Trump (and why that matters in his 'home' Scotland) – Ian Johnston
Populists rely on culture war issues, insults and jokes because they have laughably little to say about the serious issues that politics is supposed to be about
Donald Trump is funny. He’s a hoot, always cracking jokes, coming up with quirky nicknames and ridiculing stuffed-shirt politicians who just can’t handle it. From “Sleepy Joe” Biden to James “Talafreako” Talarico and Ron “DeSanctimonious” DeSantis, a fellow Republican, few are safe from the US President’s brand of wit.
He doesn’t make me laugh but lots of people seem to like his shtick and, as a tactic, it helped spawn the portmanteau word, ‘cometicians’, for politicians who lean heavily on comedy when trying to win votes.
However, in recent months, it’s started to feel like Trump has increasingly become the butt of the joke, while his rhetoric has turned sour and self-pitying – never a good look.
Norway’s stunning toilets
After the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to someone else, Trump claimed the decision not to give it to him had left an “indelible stain” on Norway, declared that Norwegian immigrants were no longer welcome in the US, and called Norway a “shit house country”, just for good measure.
This prompted Visit Norway to launch a new campaign urging tourists to visit its public conveniences and asking the question: “Are these the world’s best shithouses?” “Norway makes shithouses great again!” it says, echoing Trump’s favourite slogan. “These toilets are worth a visit, both when you really have to go – and when you don’t.”
There’s an “architecturally impressive toilet” that offers “stunning” views of the Flesefossen waterfall, while the loos at the Stegastein viewpoint have been dubbed one of the world’s ten best public toilets by design experts. Alternatively, you may wish to visit the wave-shaped Ureddplassen on the Helgeland coast, described by the Telegraph as “the most idyllic public convenience in the world”.
Who knows, the businessman in Trump might secretly admire the pitch, but it casts him as a petulant, sour-grapes loser and Norway as a small country with a sizable sense of humour – and some surprisingly well-appointed toilets.
‘Like a pillowcase full of cobras’
Meanwhile, late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has been giving Trump a taste of his own medicine, mocking his apparent sleepiness at public events with the decidedly Trumpian nicknames of “Teddy Doze-evelt” and “Nappy Don Trump”.
The satirical TV show Saturday Night Live also had fun last weekend turning Trump into the ‘butt’ of the joke after his bizarre comments admiring male and female posteriors, with impressionist James Austin Johnson, as Trump, praising the “dynamite ass on Talafreako... It's like a pillowcase full of cobras back there”. Sometimes, satire and reality can be hard to tell apart but, just for the record, Trump didn’t actually say that.
And, despite Trump’s uncharacteristically magnanimous reaction to the Republicans’ defeat in yesterday’s midterm elections, saying the Democrats “did a good job”, we can expect SNL, Kimmel and co to be merciless.
Jokes seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but there is method in Trump’s madness. If you can pull it off – and, whatever you think of him, he often can – being a cometician can be an effective way to win power. This perhaps helps explain why Trump has such a thin skin – he knows all too well the dangers of allowing yourself to be ridiculed.
Obama vs Trump
In a campaign speech for the Democrats ahead of the elections, Barack Obama – who provides a stark reminder of how US Presidents, of both parties, used to behave – cracked a joke about Trump’s redecorations to the White House, saying, “there’s gold everywhere. What’s up with the gold? Everything, more gold! He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory!”
Trump responded by saying “for you to say it’s a Cheesecake Factory... that just shows why you were a lousy president” and defending the restaurant chain as a “very successful company”.
Obama, perhaps vulnerable to accusations of snobbery, stressed he had visited the Cheesecake Factory for years when his children were young, but also hit back, noting that the White House had not disputed his claim that Trump’s policies and tariffs had increased the cost of living.
“The President wasn’t even mad about the Saddam Hussein comparison,” he said. “That part didn’t bother him, but he was very upset about the Cheesecake Factory comments. He took great umbrage.
“They mobilised a whole-of-government response to that joke, not to inflation, but to that joke.”
Obama then made a substantive point: “This is what I mean when I say these are not serious people. They don’t have solutions to actual problems, so they’d rather have the media and you talking about the Cheesecake Factory.”
Politics isn’t funny
Scotland, which Trump sometimes calls “home”, doesn’t have anyone quite like him. However, we do have our own hard-right populists and, like their hard-left rivals, they are equally unserious about the real problems affecting the country: the state of the economy, the NHS and education.
Populists focus on immigration and culture wars over trans rights and so on partly because they have so little to contribute to debates about the big issues that have massive effects on the lives and futures of most people in the country.
If people in America learn to laugh at, rather than with, Trump, some of the shine of political novelty that his fellow travellers in this country possess may be tarnished by association.
Generally speaking, politics is not funny. It’s a serious business for serious, hard-working and moral people. If we forget that, all the grim jokes that follow will be on us.
Trump’s claim that people were living in “a golden age of America”, in a surprisingly downbeat ending to a recent speech, rang hollow.
“We were laughed at all over the world.. like we were stupid people,” he said. “We were laughed at by every ruler, every president, every prime minister, every king, every queen. But they don't laugh anymore.”
Perhaps it was written as a rallying cry but Trump delivered the line with perhaps a hint of lament, like a comedian who knows his jokes are falling flat.
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